The Polk County Board of Supervisors announced Wednesday it will award a $1 million grant to help fund the creation of a new Health Care Workforce Collaborative in Central Iowa. Partners in the collaborative include Des Moines Area Community College, Grand View University, Des Moines University, Mercy College of Health Sciences, Broadlawns, MercyOne and UnityPoint Health-Des Moines. DMACC will serve in the administrative role for the program, a news release said. The partners will work together on an effort to connect students interested in a health care career with educational and employment opportunities among Polk County’s partners. “We felt very strongly that funds made available from ARPA should be used in a collaborative and strategic manner,” Polk County Board Chair Tom Hockensmith said in the release. “We knew that there were tremendous challenges in the health care workforce, and we are so thankful that each of the partners here took the collaboration part of this seriously, the only way to solve big problems like health care workforce, is to do it together.” The release said initial funding for the collaborative will be used for community outreach and staffing and that the collaborative is currently hiring staff.